amazing

Amazing how time slips away from you. Had such a busy time lately that blogging just got forgotten.Maybe I'll do some retro blogging later this week.
I enjoy reading other peoples blogs but sometime it feels intrusive.
Sorry to hear about Richard Whiteley this morning, when did 61 get to seem like it was too young? I will miss his loud jackets and wonderful ties.

Earthquake

I's J's birthday today!! She woke us up at 6:00am as she has work today and was very pleased with her presi! After she went to work I phoned my mum and while I was on the phone we had an earthquake!
It was quite scary, I did not know wether to drop the phone or sit it out!! S moved away from the window and A who was sleeping on the floor next to my bed woke up and I held his hand (for my comfort not his!!) My mum was very surprised, she could hear the windows rattling over the line!! after about 20 seconds or so the waves of the earthquake subsided and I finished chatting to my mum. Poor dad had another fall this morning and had hit his head on the bedside table. It's such a worry, mum's doing the best she can but one day she will not be able to help him up and then what? The Dr has arranged for a nurse specialising in Parkinson's to visit next month, hopefully Mum and Dad will listen to her recommendations instead of trying to struggle on as if it (PD) did not exsist! Anyway the earthquake made her call exciting for her!!
After we turned on the telly to see if they mentioned it, sometimes they just ignore them and carry on their arranged programme but today as they had felt it in the studio, KUSI had an 'expert' who said it was a 5.6 which is about as big as it can be without damaging buildings!! No one was hurt. So all round a busy morning!

Skunk

I was sitting quietly in our family room tonight, when suddenly I could hear food being eaten in the garage. I knew both my cats were in the garden waiting for their supper so I wondered which one of the pesky other cats from the neighbourhood could be in there.
I switched on the light and opened the door quickly so as to catch the culpret red handed and found to my surprise it was a skunk!!
It rushed towards me and then turned round and I thought for one dreadful moment I was going to get skunked!! But it was just hiding under the shelving. I opened the garage doors and closed the house door in the hope it would go out that way. After a while I went back, closed the door and gathered up the cat food that it was stealing and heard a noise under the boat so I guessed it was still in there. The skunk must have worked out how to go through the garden door's cat flap so I locked the cat flap from the garage to the house and hoped the skunk would go out the way he came in.
Sunday morning Coco was in the garage and there was no sign of the skunk. I have now locked the flap and hope that the skunk stays outside where he belongs.

Twix

Oh dear I have succumbed to a second Twix from the vending machine here at work. It's all that Simong's fault talking about them in his blog!! and the fact that recently a new owner has started filling the vending maching with a more tempting selection than the moldy old buns and crumbling crackers that the previous owner had. Also i forgot to have any breakfast this morning as I spent a hectic 20 minutes trying to find my car keys. We searched high and we searched low. Even A was getting worried that he would be late for school and he suggested that we wake the Kraken, otherwise known as his sister, from her den and borrow her car. As I tentively knocked at the door and asked to borrow her keys I could hear some mumbling from the depths and stood back as she opened the door with MY keys in her hand!! she had been late in and on locking the back door with my keys she had foolishly taken them with her to her room!! Well at least we found them.

extractor fan 

ceiling fan

Dh spent the w/e putting a ceiling fan in dd's bedroom. She's been asking for one for ages now but we said she couldn't have it until her room was tidy! As in 'when hell freezes over' but it must be jolly chilly in hell right now as over the course of a month or so, since the bf left for a six month tour of duty, J has been steadily clearing out all her old stuff and making her room habitable! J helped her father install the fan as much as possible and they are both very pleased with the result.
S also installed an extractor fan in our loft. That was a mammoth event but well worth the time and trouble. It gets v. hot in the loft and that keeps the rest of the house hot too. It starts automaticly when the tempreature reaches a predetermined height, which at the moment we have set at 90*. We are lucky that this house stays cool most of the time until later in the day and although we do have AC we don't have it on more than 2 or 3 times a month during the height of summer. We have a rule that we all have to be home before it's switched on during the week! We are a little more lenient at w/e's and hopefully with the new fan we might not need it even that much!

yay

I won a prize on my scrapbooking site!! We had a cybercrop which is a way of motivating people to actually get on and put some photos on a layout !! The organisers set out some challenges and give points for items used on lo and then everyone with 200 points or more gets put into a raffle. It's all done on an honour system and although the owner of the site does provide prizes and ofcourse all the facilities to host the crop, it's mostly done by volunteers who donate a lot of time and some of the prizes for these events! My favourite challenge was spelling out the phrase
ALWAYS REMEMBER AND NEVER FORGET using items used in the making of the layouts!
So many e's and a's!!
A alphabet diecuts
L Lollipop uppercase (sizzix)
W word dots A acid free paper
Y yellow chalk
S sliders
R Ribbon snaps
E Elements premium brads
M Mobe fun stamp:!:
E Emily paper
M making memories brads
B bazzill
E eyelets
R Rub on
A adhesive
N Nick Bantock Ink
D Disney font
N Numbers (mobe)
E Ethan paper
V Vintage Cutouts (the open road)
E Epsom printer
R red brads
F forest of plaid (scenic route)
O Orange cs
R red photo corners
G green cs
E embossing
T Traditional Dot (daisy d's)